Chapter 78 - Flip the Table
I grunted quietly as I heaved the second of two brass balls into the launcher I’d constructed on the ramparts overlooking the northern approach. Together, they shouldn’t have weighed more than ten, maybe twenty pounds, but I was struggling this morning. I was still in the recovery phase of having Trix use his magic on me, meaning I was still lacking lots of energy and muscle mass, not to mention the hefty debuff I got from being just above starvation.
Underfed (severe)[ -40 Body]
And what a penalty it was. I was essentially back to having 13 Body, which was about what I had to begin with. I was much weaker than that though. My body was fighting for survival, shutting down non-essential processes and scrabbling for calories I just didn’t have as of yet. That made working with constructs of pure metal just plain suck.
As the payload slipped inside, I sputtered, letting fly some of the little gritty things that passed for oats on this world. My mouth hadn’t had a chance to be empty at all this morning, despite my need for both hands while I worked. The half empty bowl of porridge was even now at my feet, waiting for me to pick it up again. More of the slop was scattered around my little work area too. The thought of it almost made me sick. A guy can really get burned out of porridge.
One thing no one mentions when your body loses so much is the cold. Without all that meat and fat insulating my insides and without all that Body score to give me supernatural protections, working in the foggy morning of the ancient forest of Ralqir was downright freezing. My entire body shook like a leaf in the wind, and my breaths came in shallow wheezes.
Shot loaded, I then summoned all my might and lifted the mouth of the construct up and over the lip of the rampart until it was propped up at about a 45 degree angle. That took several tries, my reduced strength not allowing for much more than an inch or so of movement before I had to put the whole thing down again to hyperventilate. However, it wasn’t long before I had my little cannon angled and ready for a test fire. The brace, a series of claws that dug into the petrified wood to keep the cannon still, were the easiest to attach with just a little Shaping juju, and the break gave me a chance to get my spirits back up. I could even eat as I did it.
Whistling a pirate tune I remembered from a movie I’d seen when I was a kid, I put my finger on the tiny wire protruding from the back of the tube and started to pour on the juice.
Volatility. [1 MP/sec]
I didn’t strictly have to do this, funnily enough. I could have just automated a cube that spent all of its charge at once and stuck it in the back of the cannon, but this morning I was feeling the need for historical… Well, the word wasn’t ‘accuracy.’ Authenticity? Whatever it was, I was feeling it.
“What are you doing?”
My bowl clattered to the ground, spilling the tiny amount of porridge I had left onto the toe of my boot.
“Crap,” I whispered, but I really wasn’t too sad to take a break from eating.
Samila, still in her loose, tan shirt and underwear that she slept in, limped the rest of the way up the rampart stairs, clutching the leather sheath to her sword in one hand. The soreness in her leg and… probably the rest of her showed on her face. The climb looked like it took a great effort. Getting kicked by a giant toad did that to a person, not that I would know first hand. I got a shot of Vulpa mind mojo right after I’d had my experience, so my problems were entirely different.
“Didn’t mean to frighten you,” the dragonkin ground out quietly as she took the last few stairs. Then she paused and let out a weary breath before giving me a hollow version of her signature little smile. “Unless you’re into that.”
My eyes were drawn down to her blue skin, the shape of her shoulders, the V at the neck of her shirt before I remembered I was currently channeling mana into a bomb. I was ripped back to the moment forcefully at that moment. Oh, it was already glowing a dangerous shade of purple.
“Yeah. Uh. No. Actually, you- uh- startled me is all. If I woke you, I’m sorry. I thought I was being pretty quiet up here.”
She waved a dismissive hand in the air. “No, I wasn’t sleeping. I tried, but I couldn’t. I relieved Bole and told him to go get some sleep. Need our best fighters healthy and rested for today.”
The last sentence came out through clenched teeth.
“Good thing you’re all rested then, huh?” I said lamely.
Her only reply was to make a very unladylike sound with her mouth.
“Okay, sorry. Won’t do that again,” I said, looking up from my Volatility wick to try and catch her eye. The faint light of the early morning was just bright enough to show me the worry in her eyes, a slight swelling and darkness to the scales.
“Hey. Hey,” I called, tilting my head and leaning over to make sure she was looking at me. “You and I are not out of this fight. A little time, and we’ll be back out there. I’ll be out there with my sword, flailing around and you’ll get back to being a terrifying, Amazonian demi-goddess.”
“Terrifying huh?” She sniffed.
“Absolutely,” I assured her.
“What is an ‘Am-a-zon-ee-an’? Is this a word from your home?”
I had said that, hadn’t I? I tried to think of a good way to explain this without embarrassing myself. My knowledge was more mythical than historical. More a product of archived pop culture than real knowledge.
“They were a legendary tribe of from back home. All women. Beautiful, fierce, strong. There were epics and poems written about them for thousands and thousands of years,” I said, stopping briefly to think about all the books, comics and movies I’d seen. “Their legend was so strong, the Amazonian name become synonymous with female strength.”
A moment passed between us, silent, tense.
Suddenly, a ghost of the woman’s patented sly smile was back on her face, a genuine one this time. “So, you think I’m beautiful.”
And there it was. I knew I’d walked right into it, and I kind of did it on purpose. Still didn’t make the next part any easier. My mouth expressed what my brain was experiencing.
“Uh.”
She shook her head and leaned back to rest on one of the petrified bark crenelations. Her posture slowly gained back some of its casual confidence. “Don’t run away from it. It was a nice thing to say.”
“Uh. Okay,” I replied, not quite knowing how to proceed. This was as far as the “cheer Samila up” plan had gotten. I was no good at flirting with girls, even when they did most of the work.
Which stat do I have to raise to be less like me?
I suddenly gained a new appreciation for the work I’d been doing before the dragonkin came up those stairs. I bent down to get a good read on where I was pointing the cannon. Suddenly, a blue hand was resting on the shaft just next to the wick.
“So, tell me. How beautiful would you say I am in comparison to my sister?”
I froze. Yes, my life flashed before my eyes. No, it didn’t take very long. I had only one escape.
*BOOM*
The cannon shot ripped through the morning. Purple fire belched from the barrel as excess Volatility charge was expended all at once, sending the payload soaring up and away into the forest.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
“Light and gods of old, what is all that racket?! Geddon roared from down in the courtyard.
I exchanged a look with Samila, who was now both grinning ear to ear but also gingerly rubbing her hand that was just resting on the cannon.
“Uh. It’s okay! I’m doing pirate stuff now,” I shouted over my own ringing ears.
“Couldn’t it have waited? I was having a dream.” Geddon replied.
Trix’s basket rocked as the Vulpa shifted his weight. A little nose peaked over the edge. “Mmf. I am sure Ryan has a good reason to… do whatever he is doing. A very good reason” he added, not bothering to keep the cordial tone.
“He’d fucking better!” Bole growled. He was already half in his armor, his black hair still mussed from his short time abed.
I swallowed, standing up to my full height to sheepishly check where my shot had landed. A quick sweep of the forest floor came up with nothing. Then I had to turn my search up, way up, actually. Farther up than I’d planned.
About 50 or 60 feet up one of the trunks of the mendau, outside the outer perimeter, I spied a faint purple glow. The chain between my two cannon balls was already starting its charging process.
Thank Constance for building sized trees.
“Ryan?” Sissa’s voice cut smoothly through the angry grumbling of the others. “What’s going on?”
“It’s uh…” I tried hard not to glance back over at Samila, who was doing her best to hide how pleased she was at having been the cause of my premature detonation. “I had a dream about pirates and- Well, I was going to wait until you were awake, but I’m ready to bring down the rest of the trees.”
On that note, I turned around and peered into the forest gloom. There was movement out there now. None of the scourge came close enough to the fort to trigger the turrets, but they were moving around out there. The sudden activity had roused them.
“Ryan, the infected are making their way toward your glowing chain,” Trix said. His rifle barrel was up and out of the basket and aimed at targets I could only dream of seeing that far out.
I nodded, feeling a thrill pass through my core.
““I’m seeing lots of Returned and… Miur… Vulpa… Urlan… I think the infected from Eclipse and the surrounding villages have finally arrived. Should I shoot them before they can investigate?” He asked.
Smiling, I brought all the Volatility triggers to the front of my mind and focused on the newest one. Perfect. “No. Let them be,” I replied. If my estimations were correct, the longer we spent in this standoff, the better. More time meant more time to charge.
“That isn’t one of the trees we’ve marked for death. In fact, it is far out of range for the turrets,” Sissa observed clinically.
I nodded, smiling slightly to myself “No, it’s not one we need to bring down.”
I could see the monsters scurrying over the terrain around the wounded tree, sniffing and casting hateful glances my way then back up to where my construct lay. Some were even clawing their way up the trunk. The oddly proportioned but strong figures of Black Ones were the first up, carefully picking their way toward my little chain shot.
Sissa raised a curious eyebrow ridge. “Want to bring me in on this plan?”
“Sure. I was sleeping last night between bowls of mush, and I had a dream about pirates. From back home, I mean,” I added when I saw the confusion on her face. “There were lots of stories about them, their exploits. Most of them were terrible terrible people. Some were devilishly clever. For a while, they used cannons sort of like this one.” I put a booted foot up on the expended cannon for emphasis.
The monsters were up the tree now and sniffing around my glowing purple chain. It wouldn’t be long now.
“And you chose to test your ‘cannon’ today as a method of delivering your shaped charges?” Sissa was a smart girl. She saw at least the first part of my thought process immediately.
One of the Black Ones began to tug on the now spikey cannonball to try to dislodge it from the bark of the mendau tree. They’d been programmed to take their second form as soon as they’d left the barrel of the cannon, and the spikes were meant to help them grab. I wondered how many cuts the little dude was getting on his palms trying to pry it out of the wood.
I wobbled my head side to side, noncommittal. “At first, that’s what I was going to do, but the more I thought about it, the worse an idea I realized it was. They’re essentially chains. The scourge saw us use something similar to bring down two trees yesterday. If they’re getting as smart as I think they are, I don’t think they’ll let us do anything like that again. Not without pushback at least.”
“So, this is a test to see how they react then?”
“Nah,” I scoffed just as the Black Ones managed to dislodge one of the spiked anchors, followed shortly by the other. The construct then began its descent to the forest floor. “The thing that made the pirates of old dangerous wasn’t necessarily the cannons. It was subterfuge. Lying through action,”
I pointed a finger at the accelerating purple jumble of chain and made a little shooting motion with my finger gun.
“Observe,” I said.
*BOOM*
The scourge around the base of the tree exploded as the chain’s charge detonated. From all around us, there was a collective howl as the scourge entered a frenzy. They’d realized the danger they were in immediately, faster than I’d even thought they would.
The scourge was thinking strategically now, learning concepts it had taken people forever to put together in a matter of seconds. It realized the game had just changed significantly, and if it wanted the best chance at overwhelming us, it needed to act now. The cannon meant we would, potentially, be able to bring down whatever tree we wanted.
“Okay, people!” I called to the rest of them. “May want to get up on the walls now! Think we’re about to see a little action!”
Samila sauntered/limped over to my side and leaned on my metal arm. Sissa came up on the other side, pulling her shield into place on her forearm. The two of them looked rough, off balance maybe. Sissa was missing her sword, Samila her shield. I’d need to make replacements before I did anything else. Of course, I would have time for that soon.
“They’re going to charge en masse,” Sissa guessed. “Get ready for a fight on all fronts! This is going to be a bad one!”
“Yes!” Trix shouted. “They are massing out there, all around! Thousands of them that were out of sight! We most certainly have the entire population of Eclipse here now. Perhaps more.”
“Ryan, I need to know your plan right now. We’re facing overwhelming force, we’re severely depleted, and you don’t look surprised,” Sissa demanded angrily.
Nodding, I brought up the rest of the Volatility tiggers, ready to detonate them. “Just hold steady! It won’t be as bad as it looks!” I ordered. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a great mass of bodies surge forward, a writhing, black sea of once living beings that represented an entire city of people claimed by the scourge.
Then, turning to Sissa, I kept my voice low. “Like I said, the cannons aren’t what made pirates dangerous. I realized that last night when I was disassembling the shaped charges into smaller bits.”
The scourge flooded into the outer perimeter, and the turrets went to work. Full auto. Over-penetrating rounds. Every corner of the fortress was awash in purple light and thunderous sound. Scourge died by the triple digits, but the mass kept coming. They kept coming closer and closer to the inner perimeter where we’d once wanted to bring down our trees. Of course, the scourge went well around the sunlight that now streamed into a large clearing left by our previous work.
Sissa didn’t like the theatrics though. “Ryan! I need to know now! What is going on?”
The inner perimeter was breached. The black tide spilled over the imaginary circle, breaking over the ancient mendau.
I put my mouth almost directly on her ear, so close my lips brushed the scales. Weird. They felt more soft than I’d expected, like down feathers. My voice was quiet lest I give away the game too soon, and our enemy call off its charge. “The charges have been set for hours now. I reprogrammed the drones to do it quietly last night.”
She pulled away, narrowing her eyes and turning from me to the battle and back again, realization pulling her jaw down until she looked like a blue fish. Her sister didn’t ask any questions, choosing, instead, to lean on me and pick at her nails. Samila must have been fast on the uptake, or maybe she trusted me in a way Sissa didn’t.
Time to rub the salt in.
Stepping forward, I put a foot on the nearest crenelation and leaned out over the wall to stare the nearest scourge creature right in the eyes, what I hoped was a sufficiently cocky grin on my face. I gave the creature a wink, and, with a snap of my fingers, I triggered the charges. An almost synchronized series of metallic *pop*s sounded above the din of the guns and the wailing of the scourge.
The entire forest seemed to distort, fold in on itself as the entire world beyond a certain point began to slowly lean. What were once straight lines, solid and true, bent, broke. Then the trees leaned degree by degree, falling slowly as all old and ancient things did. The entire middle ground of my vision stopped making sense to my mortal brain. Humans aren’t meant to witness things so massive meet their end. We were meant to live below them, to view them as eternal, nature’s reminder of how small we really are.
The trees fell exactly the way Geddon had predicted, and they fell hard. Away. They fell directly on the teeming mass of monsters and ground them into paste. Worse for our enemy, they let in the light.
Blinding, burning sunlight… maelstrom light stabbed down from above forming visible rays in the mist and through the cloud of debris in the air. The rays of light burned through the scourge like a celestial laser, a circular fence of bright death. Every single one of the creatures even remotely close to our new inner perimeter burst into flames. Oily, black smoke seemed to billow up from those affected, out of their skin, their mouths and eyes, only to disappear as the light dissolved it too. As one, the tide of scourge broke upon our new fortification as if it were a solid thing.
Those scourge that were lucky enough to have charged past the inner perimeter before I’d triggered the charges found themselves quite alone, and the turrets were quick and efficient in dispatching them. The last one tumbled to the ground well before getting within spitting range.
From there, the scourge scattered as quickly as it had gathered, howling as it ran away to lick its wounds, racing with itself to get out of range of the turrets before it could take any more losses. Before long, the guns and my companions fell silent once more. My friends didn’t seem to have anything to say. Bole started a slow clap that no one else took up, but that was probably more of a result of it being Bole, not the general mood of the crowd.
I stared out at the carnage I’d wrought and took a deep inhale through the nose, tasting absolute victory for the first time since I’d arrived here. A minute and thirty seconds, and the horde had lost thousands, maybe tens of thousands. What’s more, we now had a choke point. I knew how to defend a choke point.
It probably wouldn’t last, but at this moment, I felt like things weren’t entirely hopeless. For the first time in a long time, I felt like we could win. No more running. No more deaths. Complete and absolute victory over evil.
Your move then, asshole.